Now like so many people in these forums, I wonder how one upgrades a windows 10 home system to pro and ends up permanently activated for free. Of course, I read lots of posts in the corresponding threads...

All the various ways described didn't work in the end.

(1)
Installing windows 8.1 pro, KMS activation:
Whenever I wanted to upgrade to windows 10 pro, I was only offered windows 10 home installation.
I tried the "putting ei.cfg in the sources folder" trick -> didn't work
I tried several different windows 10 iso versions -> no go
I also read this, written by Enthousiast:
(https://forums.mydigitallife.net/threads/windows-10-home-oem-to-pro.70273/page-2#post-1250889)
quoting him:
"
I'm forgetting the fact, to upgrade on a system with an oemm bioskey for home and you want to go from 8.1 pro/kms to 10 pro, you have to use a 10240 iso, that one can't readout the oemm bioskey
"

Of course, I also took a 10240 iso, but the result was the same.

That's why I finally decided to even start with windows 7 - though my kaby lake etc. are no longer supported by windows 7:

(2)
I used that Gigabyte WindowsImageTool and put windows 7 SP1 on an usb flash drive, inserting drivers for usb3 and for nvme. I tried with both x86 and x64 versions of windows 7.

Starting the install process (non-UEFI, of course - thinking of using Daz loader thereafter) always ended in a bluescreen pointing at stornvme.sys.

So option (2) failed, too.

I do not want to go the KMS route (only - see above - as an intermediate step, maybe), but I would like to achieve a fully and permanently activated windows 10 pro.

Unless I forgot about something or made an error, may I conclude that there are no more options to get a free upgrade to windows 10 pro?

By the way, everything I tried and described above worked flawlessly in vmware player, just not in my real computer.

If the oem key for home is in the bios, then your options for a free pro upgrade are gone, right?
(no, I do not want to install a modified bios or something like that)

You can establish a HWID for pro on a system with an oem : dm for Home.

Install windows 7 SP1 and activate by using daz loader. Next use a modified 14393/15063 iso (either use a correct ei.cfg* or delete the home index from the wim) to upgrade or go the gatherosstate route.

And with a 10240 is it always has to work, that iso doesn't readout/uses the oem : dm key at all, from 10586 up it can.

This ei.cfg should work:

Code:

[Channel]
_Default
[VL]
0

Or this one:

Code:

[EditionID]
[Channel]
Volume
[VL]
1

The problem of having Pro (HWID or KMS) on a system with a Home OEM : DM you always have to do some extra steps to keep on Pro during the frequent upgrade periods (2 times a year)..

To get a free HWID from a 8.1 KMS activated install you have to use 10586 or 10240, to establish a hwid.

I really managed to install Windows 7 professional on my system, but I needed to use my second (non-SSE) hard drive (with the MS hotfixes injected, it inevitably meant: bluescreen when booting my bootable usb flash drive with Windows 7 pro!).

I had to fight against Microsoft's "Hardware not supported" (kaby lake processor) and use an unofficial patch someone wrote to be able to (from the running system) install nvme drivers and get access to my SSD, too.

I ended with a device Manager having no exclamation marks - I found drivers for virtually everything.

Activating with Daz loader - no Problem!
"Genuine"!

But please be aware:
I made a bootable usb flash drive with Windows 10 (10240) and tried an upgrade (from the running win7 pro system) to Windows 10 pro - but again: I was only offered a Windows 10 *Home* Installation - didn't matter which version of ei.cfg I put in that sources Folder! It just didn't let me choose "pro" - no way!

So since that upgrade test failed, I guess, creating a genuineticket.xml and doing a clean install will be pointless - I will end in Windows 10 home, that much appears to be sure.

I suppose, I will have to stay with Windows 10 Home. So 10240 must be able to detect my bioskey for home.

You need to use the 10240 pro only iso, not 10240 pro/home. You already have a windows 10 pro digital entitlement from windows 7 pro's gatherosstate.xml file. I've done this several times and it works to upgrade windows 8 with oem: dm bios to windows 10 pro. I'm typing this on a laptop with windows 10 pro that has an oem: dm windows 8 bios.

Instead of starting the upgrade procedure from inside windows 7, I simply tried a clean install of windows 10 pro with that same iso (10240, home/pro) and the same ei.cfg and not only did it REALLY install windows 10 pro, but I also did it on my SSD this time.

Thanks so much, you are definitely right and your statements helped a lot.

quoting Enthousiast:
"
The problem of having Pro (HWID or KMS) on a system with a Home OEM : DM you always have to do some extra steps to keep on Pro during the frequent upgrade periods (2 times a year)..
"

Does that mean that going the windows 7/Daz route (instead of the windows 8.1 route etc.) can still end in losing one's activation after a windows update?

And what would be the extra steps then?
Would it suffice to put that genuineticket.xml in the corresponding folder again? I cannot quite see what would have to be done when activation has been lost?

"The problem of having Pro (HWID or KMS) on a system with a Home OEM : DM you always have to do some extra steps to keep on Pro during the frequent upgrade periods (2 times a year)."

*I've never had that problem. I think he's talking about you might have to re-enter your pro key under some circumstances.

Does that mean that going the windows 7/Daz route (instead of the windows 8.1 route etc.) can still end in losing one's activation after a windows update?

*Definitely not.

And what would be the extra steps then?
Would it suffice to put that genuineticket.xml in the corresponding folder again? I cannot quite see what would have to be done when activation has been lost?

*You never have to do the genuineticket.xml thing ever again once you're activated. You can only lose activation after changing a motherboard or something like that and in that case genuineticket.xml won't help you, unless you start all over with windows 7 again and do the genuineticket thing. But you can call microsoft and get your activation straightened out without having to start all over again.

...*You never have to do the genuineticket.xml thing ever again once you're activated. You can only lose activation after changing a motherboard or something like that and in that case genuineticket.xml won't help you, unless you start all over with windows 7 again and do the genuineticket thing. But you can call microsoft and get your activation straightened out without having to start all over again.

Click to expand...

Or you can link your Microsoft account. So that after a motherboard (or similar) change you can just login with your MS account and it'll be activated. There are some success stories out there using this method. Never tried this personally though.

Instead of starting the upgrade procedure from inside windows 7, I simply tried a clean install of windows 10 pro with that same iso (10240, home/pro) and the same ei.cfg and not only did it REALLY install windows 10 pro, but I also did it on my SSD this time.

Thanks so much, you are definitely right and your statements helped a lot.

quoting Enthousiast:
"
The problem of having Pro (HWID or KMS) on a system with a Home OEM : DM you always have to do some extra steps to keep on Pro during the frequent upgrade periods (2 times a year)..
"

Does that mean that going the windows 7/Daz route (instead of the windows 8.1 route etc.) can still end in losing one's activation after a windows update?

And what would be the extra steps then?
Would it suffice to put that genuineticket.xml in the corresponding folder again? I cannot quite see what would have to be done when activation has been lost?

Many thanks

Click to expand...

Once the HWID for pro is established it is valid for the lifetime of the hardware it's established on (you can use your msa to transfer the HWID to other hardware).

The extra steps i was talking about is that next upgrade (>RS3) thru WU or with an unmodified iso, it will upgrade to Home again. When this happens you only have to re-enter the generic Pro key (ending on 3V66T).

Regarding my login screen question:
Is this a difference between windows 10 home and pro?

In spite of selecting "spotlight" for the lock screen AND turning on the option to make the *login screen* use the same background pictures as the lock screen, I still only see the same picture again and again.

I really liked those nice background pictures when I rebooted my PC and logged into windows 10 (home) again.